The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has released an updated version of its successful TeamSTEPPS® curriculum, an evidence-based set of teamwork tools aimed at optimizing patient outcomes by improving communication and teamwork skills among health care professionals. TeamSTEPPS 2.0 is a complete update and streamlining of the original curriculum, incorporating new evidence, lessons learned and input from experts.

TeamSTEPPS was developed by the Department of Defense (DoD) Patient Safety Program, in collaboration with AHRQ, in 2006. The goal of TeamSTEPPS is to produce highly effective medical teams that optimize the use of information, people and resources to achieve the best clinical outcomes for their patients. TeamSTEPPS is a foundation for patient safety improvement efforts and draws on core competencies that have been proven effective in other high-risk industries such as the military and aviation.

"Patient safety is an important priority for AHRQ," said Richard Kronick, Ph.D., director of the Agency. "We've compiled the best evidence on what works in team training and are helping to ensure that evidence is being used to improve the care patients receive."

TeamSTEPPS 2.0 includes several significant changes:

A measurement module has been added that provides information about how to measure the impact of TeamSTEPPS and the available tools to support evaluation.

The communication module has been moved up in the order of instruction to better align with the emphasis on communicating early and often to improve teamwork.

The course management guide has been updated to include TeamSTEPPS modules and versions that have been added for the user's reference.

To date, more than 1,500 hospitals across the country have implemented TeamSTEPPS within their organizations. TeamSTEPPS has trained more than 5,000 master trainers on how to offer TeamSTEPPS to frontline health care teams in their own hospitals and other health care settings. These master trainers have in turn trained over 300,000 frontline health care professionals in their organizations. These health care organizations have used the customizable curriculum to create a culture of safety, making care safer and the implementation of other hospital safety initiatives easier. A 2013 AHRQ report on patient safety practices shows there is a growing body of high-quality evidence that team training can positively impact health care team processes and patient outcomes. Case studies of the impact of TeamSTEPPS can be found on AHRQ's Web site at http://www.ahrq.gov/policymakers/case-studies/index.html

Institutions already using the TeamSTEPPS training toolkit do not need to make any changes to their instruction methods, but they can use the new streamlined materials as desired. The curriculum is available online and in DVD format and includes presentations, teaching modules and video vignettes that can be used to train staff. For more information or to register for in-person TeamSTEPPS master training courses at one of the six regional centers, visit http://teamstepps.ahrq.gov. (DoD Military Treatment Facilities with questions about training should contact patientsafety@dha.mil.)

"TeamSTEPPS 2.0 is a practical communication and teamwork tool incorporating the most up-to-date evidence and feedback from the patient safety field to help providers make health care safer," said Jeff Brady, M.D., M.P.H., director of AHRQ's Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety. "The training curriculum can be implemented beyond the hospital setting, too. For example, AHRQ has TeamSTEPPS resources available for long-term care settings, and we are developing materials for primary care settings and for distance learning." Watch a video clip of Dr. Brady discussing TeamSTEPPS 2.0 at http://go.usa.gov/K76V

AHRQ is a key participant in the Partnership for Patients initiative, a public-private partnership working to improve the quality, safety, and affordability of health care for Medicare, Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) beneficiaries and by extension, all Americans, by reducing preventable hospital acquired conditions. More information about the Partnership for Patients initiative can be found at http://partnershipforpatients.cms.gov.